Vic Tradies the Safest but more needs to be Done

It is sobering to think that with each working day that passes somewhere in Victoria 10 tradespeople are suffering injuries serious enough for them to submit workers compensations claims, especially when you consider that Victoria actually has the best safety record in the country.

17,000 claims for injury over the past 5 years is too high a number and $1 billion in costs comes from construction industry injuries alone. In fact tradespeople and labourers make up the majority of workers injured, 80 per cent. Every year around 200 health and safety breaches are found on construction sites across Victoria.

According to WorkSafe more needs to be done to improve safety and get workers talking more about safety. This is why WorkSafe has introduced the Top Tradie Cup to engage workers and get them interacting about safety. The Top Tradie Cup runs for six weeks and the competition combines safety with something most people love, football in order to test the football and safety knowledge of Victorian tradies.

An article on SafetyCulture.com.au provides more information on the issue:

Every day ten tradespeople are injured badly enough to need to submit a workers compensation claim according to the statistics from WorkSafe Victoria that were released today.

Over the last five years there have been over 17,000 claims for injury reported to WorkSafe from the construction industry alone that was a cost of nearly $1 billion for treatment, wages and other related costs.

When the statistics are examined, labourers and tradies account for nearly 80 per cent of workers that are injured.

Denise Cosgrove, the WorkSafe Chief Executive, said that there is more that needs to be done in the construction industry even though there seems to be a strong understanding of safety.

She said that WorkSafe inspectors in average visit 40 Victorian construction sites every day with 6500 health and safety breaches discovered annually.

Ms Cosgrove said that the numbers of deaths and injuries illustrates the need for everyone to work harder at ensuring safety at construction sites. Most of the injuries were a result of poor planning, deficient site housekeeping and not enough worker supervision.

According to Cosgrove the majority of construction site injuries are caused by poor planning, poor site housekeeping and a lack of supervision and although they may not always be life-threatening, they are often painful, long-lasting and result in long periods off work costing the company, the tradie and the economy.

With the Top Tradie Cup WorkSafe aims to promote a culture of safety on work sites which will hopefully encourage behaviour change which will ultimately lead to fewer workers being injured on site thereby forcing employers to address the issues of planning, housekeeping and supervision in order to provide workers a safe work environment and safe system of work.

Steven Asnicar is regarded as a leader across many fields of industry. In particular, his specialisation across the health, infrastructure, construction, resource and utility sectors has seen him successfully change the dynamics of these industries through the introduction of new strategic, marketing, training and technical frameworks.
Steven works closely with industry peak bodies such as Safework Australia, Australian Logistics Council, National Advisory for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment (NATESE) and the Council of Australian Governments in the development of new delivery standards and industry specific programs.